Students struggling to afford dresses have option thanks to donors

BENTLEY — Naomi Klumpp of Bentley hopes no young ladies in area school districts stay home from formal dances because they can’t afford a dress, which is why she began collecting old dresses and is lending them to those in need.

“What I found out over the course of this summer is that we had many, many young girls in our area that didn’t go to any of the formal dances here in Standish, Pinconning and Ogemaw, because they couldn’t afford the dresses,” she said.

Klumpp said she started posting on Facebook that if dresses were no longer needed for a formal event, she would like to take them and let students borrow them for dances.

“People have been donating and donating and donating the dresses,” she said.

Klumpp has 48 dresses available at her house and more on the way.

“If they are high school age and able to go to dances, I have every single size you could imagine,” she said. “I have size 0 up to plus sizes.”

“They are beautiful,” Klumpp said. “They are fantastic. I would say there’s probably not one older than 3 years old that I have upstairs.”

While the dresses have been coming in rapidly, Klumpp said there have only been a couple of inquiries about borrowing them. She said she is concerned some students might be embarrassed about having to borrow a dress, which is why she is asking them to private message her on Facebook or to call her cellphone.

“I don’t know if the girls are embarrassed to do it, but that’s what I’m trying to get around,” she said.

Klumpp said when the dresses are returned after a dance, she plans on having them dry-cleaned so they can be used again.

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